Opening stores on Thanksgiving erodes the family holiday

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Sarah Grady is worried that “the holidays are disappearing.”

A Pottstown-area resident just 18 months out of high school, Grady believes the decision by an increasing number of stores to open on Thanksgiving represents a conscious decision by Americans to abandon family holiday time for shopping time. She feels so strongly about the message that she started an online petition at Change.org asking stores to reconsider.

As of last week, the petition had more than 500 signatures and was not the only petition circulating on the web.

Grady works in retail, and she said seeing co-workers denied the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with their families is part of the motivation for her protest. Department and big-box store employees who feel cheated out of a holiday are also among those signing the petition, she said.

But there are other retail workers who feel the opposite. Comments solicited on Facebook show some store employees favor opening on Thanksgiving to earn time-and-a-half or even double-time pay.

Stores say they’re just doing what shoppers want. And to be sure, the pictures we’ve seen in recent years of traffic entering the Philadelphia Premium Outlets in Limerick for midnight Black Friday doorbuster specials indicate the rush to get started on holiday bargain hunting starts before the turkey is cold.

The push of shoppers to get an early start is what stores say has motivated them to infringe on the holiday.

The dance began a few years ago with several retailers pushing Black Friday specials into Thanksgiving night. As one does, others have to follow, or they’ll lose out.

The result is that this year more than a dozen major retailers have announced they will be open Thanksgiving Day. The earlier hours have pushed out to the malls and the smaller merchants. One marketing expert was quoted by The Associated Press predicting that in five years Thanksgiving will have become just another shopping day.

Is bucking the trend worth the trouble and potential loss of revenue? Patricia McLaughlin and her daughter-business partner Megan Bauer think so.

Founder and president of Coventry Corners, McLaughlin said there has to be some point where people say “families are more important than money,” and this seems like that time.

Coventry Corners gift shops, located in two malls, will open to shoppers 6 a.m. Friday, even though both malls in which they are located will be open Thursday beginning at 8 p.m.

Bauer, vice president of the shops, said the decision is not only for employees, but also for customers who should be able to enjoy the holiday without the pressure of missing out on bargains.

“Everybody says we don’t sit around the dinner table. Well, this is the best dinner table of the year, and if they can’t sit there, when are they going to sit?” McLaughlin said.

Shop owners like McLaughlin and Bauer and Thanksgiving diehards like Grady know that they are in the minority, and shoppers’ impatience will likely win in the end. The trend, once started, is unlikely to be reversed.

But like these protesters, we are sorry to see another holiday meant for family, friends and loved ones fall to bargain hunting. Like the doorbuster stampedes that have made headlines in recent years, the opening of stores on Thanksgiving is a runaway train.

Sadly, it erodes the luxury of a relaxed dinner, some board games, conversation, and gathering together for football or a movie on TV.

We have few such luxuries remaining in our crowded lives. Whether or not we choose to preserve them for ourselves is up to us.

The bargains will still be there on Friday, but family will have scattered. Our advice: Take time to enjoy the holiday before hitting the bargain trail.